I strongly fear suspect that most American women will vote for Hillary Clinton without ever examining the issues closely, just because she is their first opportunity, after 200+ years, of finally having one of their own in office. And it is way past time.

This occurs to me after a very brief conversation I had with my wife a few minutes ago. I said something to the effect of, "If Gore doesn't run, I'm leaning to Edwards as a better candidate than Clinton."

She said, "Um hum," rolled her eyes slightly, and returned to her computer screen with a smile on her face.

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Their favorite way to do it is by accusing Dems of the very crimes they are committing themselves.

I bring up this well-known principle because I clicked on a link from my own website (the link phrase says, "If you are looking for twisted souls willing to do anything to gain or hold onto power, try here.") that goes to www.gop.com.

Tonight, that link takes you to a front page that includes a political cartoon of Hillary Clinton listening to tape recordings of "political opponents" while running the FISA bill through a shredder. The cartoon links to a story in the Washington Times quoting a hit-book (Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton) claiming the Clintons listened to opponents' cell phone calls when Bill was governor of Arkansas!

More below the fold.

A few hours ago, while flipping between the five(!!!) NBC stations that were carrying various Live Earth shows, I caught a few minutes of an interview with Gore.

The reporter tried very hard to paint him into a corner about running for President. He danced around most of her questions smoothly. Then at one point she said something to the effect of, "If you were to become convinced that none of the other candidates would make the necessary decisions as President to stop global warming, would that force you to step into the ring?"

He blinked. He paused. Then he slowly changed the subject, smoothness gone for a few moments.

He really is thinking about running, even though I think it's clear he doesn't want to. It's going to take millions of Americans asking him to run, combined with ruthless analysis of the other candidates' environmental platforms, to do it. Even so, he'll wait till the last minute, in order to make the campaign as short as possible for himself and his family.

Everybody keep thinking strong thoughts!

This started out as a reply to a comment here about Black Evangelical churches being rooted in slavery. It got too long, so I'm making it a diary.

Yes, Christianity was imposed on Black (and Native American) slaves as a conscious act of religious and tribal genocide, as yet one more way to keep slaves from organizing by their previous cultural ties. Similar policies were practiced by European colonists all around the world.

The slaves promptly figured out ways to keep their old religions alive through Voodoo, Santeria, Macumba, etc., while simultaneously bringing their traditional worship styles into officially "Christian" churches. The Native Americans, on the other hand, started yammering to the whites about a "Great Spirit," in hopes of being seen as fellow monotheists. Most of them were forced into Christian churches anyway.

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During an interview with a gentleman from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, about EFF's lawsuit against Viacom (the owner of the Comedy Central network) over internet copyright issues involving Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube for posting clips from the Colbert Report, Stephen "the Eagle" Colbert tonight declared: "Librarians are hiding something!™" as an example of a phrase he was trademarking as his own creation and insisting that no one should repeat on the Net. (That's the longest sentence I've written in months.)

We Have Been Warned. All of us who are concerned about issues of intellectual property rights and freedom of the Nets should be sure not to repeat the phrase, "Librarians are hiding something!™" online, for fear that Stephen (and Viacom) will lose the fortune this phrase would otherwise earn them. I certainly will be careful not to repeat the phrase, "Librarians are hiding something!™" as I'm sure Stephen wishes all his fans would be. </snark>

Serious discussion on the flipside?

In a comment to a diary about impeachment by northwoods1, Hunter today said this:

Ironically, the more impeachment is talked about as an eventual outcome, the less likely it is to actually happen -- because unconvinced people will be emotionally steeled against it for a long period of time, convinced that it's all a partisan Democratic attack, and even very damning new facts that turn up won't be nearly as likely to sink in.

It's fascinating to me how very typical of American culture even the people who are trying to improve it still are. Impeachment is not an either/or proposition. We don't have to choose one dualist extreme or the other. And short-term gratification, however desirable, isn't going to happen on this issue. "These things must be done delicately." The more we talk about instant impeachment, the more we "spook the game."

(more on the flip side)

This is in response to Religious (Il)literacy: The Christian Left Finally Stands Up... Again by ecclesioleft.  I've written about this before in Some musings on fear and the religious left, but ecclesioleft's excellent writing sparked a few other thoughts.

It seems to this Pagan that a big part of the problem is that progressive Christians are not public as Christians who happen to be progressives. They allow the worst of their faiths to dominate the public discourse by default.

This started out as a comment to a diary by wiscmass, called "In search of religious tolerance." In this diary, wiscmass was complaining that too many kossacks throw the liberal religious babies out with the fundamentalist bathwater. The comments quickly became a war between liberal religionists and fundamentalist atheists. As someone who belongs to neither group, but who does have my own Neopagan religious beliefs, perhaps I can offer a different way of observing the issues.

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So I've been passing around the meme I stole from someone's sigline here, "G.O.P. = Grope Our Pages," and have been astounded at how few people get the joke at first, here in a fairly liberal part of New York (Rockland County). Today, I mentioned to a couple of friendly bank tellers that I was going to make a big lawn sign telling people to vote Republican ("Vote for Torture, Kidnappings, and Corruption!"). They both looked at me completely blank-faced. They had no idea what I was talking about.

It gets worse. This last weekend I was speaking at the Greater Pittsburgh Pagan Pride Day celebration. My topic was listed in the program as "Pagans and Politics," so I expected that a crowd of 100+ members of a minority belief community would be politically aware...

In a front page diary by SusanG today there is a long discussion of Mr. Bush's reference to "Islamic fascists" and the American Muslims' negative reaction to the term. I agree that "fascism" in its strict historical definition isn't applicable. But what should we call them? Is there a short one or two word term for such folks that won't be misinterpreted as a slur against all Muslims? Of course, we could always inquire about what word they use in English to refer to violent Islamic religious fanatics, but I think in the meantime that it would be useful to explore available memes for framing the issues of religiously motivated violence.

I was reading an entry by a liberal Protestant (I assume) minister (RevRandy) about a "liberal religious revolution" today, in which he was attempting to rouse liberal members of all religions to take action of some sort. As I told him, I wish him well, but I have my doubts about how much success he and others will have without some major changes on the religious left.

I've been reading and watching a great deal of political material lately, trying to figure out how genuinely progressive candidates can distinguish themselves from the business-as-usual corporate Democrats. What should be in a candidate's platform, even before the Democrat (or Green or Libertarian) Party platforms are created?  I would want a candidate to pledge agreement to some or most of the following ideas before giving her or him any money or other support.